relative under suspicion
“A shock that goes through the city again” – horror in Hanau after the violent death of two children
The police cordoned off the area around the high-rise building in Hanau
© Frank Rumpenhorst / DPA
Police officers discover two dead children in downtown Hanau. The officers quickly suspect a crime. While the manhunt for the suspect is underway, horror spreads through the city.
The Hessian city of Hanau is in shock. Again, it’s an outrageous crime that grabs the city headlines. Two children are dead, presumably killed by a relative. And many, many questions are still open.
It is around half past seven on Wednesday morning when the police arrive at the aging high-rise in the center of the city of 100,000. An emergency call had previously been received in the operations center – passers-by had dropped it off.
Two dead children in Hanau
In the courtyard of the residential and commercial building, the officers make the terrible discovery. A young boy lies on the ground, with serious injuries. He is no longer responsive. Rows of gray concrete balcony railings tower dozens of meters above him. Alarmed rescue workers rush in and take the child to the Hanau city hospital – but the doctors can no longer save it, “despite their best efforts,” as the police later reported. The boy was only eleven years old.
In the eleven-story high-rise, the police officers come across the next child. On the balcony of an apartment on the upper floors, they discover a girl, probably the boy’s sister. She’s already dead. Died at the age of seven.
The investigators move out with a large contingent to the concrete block on the Roman road. Criminal police and prosecutors question neighbors, search the apartment, a drone for photos rises, forensics employees even cut flowers and bushes in front of the high-rise building to better find clues. No detail should remain undiscovered, the events should be reconstructed as meticulously as possible. “In the case of such an act, we run the full program,” says a police officer. The terrible suspicion became more and more certain as the day progressed: “The investigators from the public prosecutor’s office and the criminal police are assuming a homicide,” it said at noon. Under suspicion: a family member of the children. The investigators know who to look for.
The police will not say who the man is. It also does not confirm reports from several media that the suspect is said to be the father of the two children killed. Only this much: He is being searched for “at high pressure” – but without success until the evening. The “Spiegel” reports that a man who looks like the suspect can be seen in a video. He ran away from the scene of the crime and got into a taxi. That is also not confirmed. It is not known whether the mother plays a role in the case.
The news of the death of the two children spread like wildfire in Hanau and beyond. A good two years ago, the city became the scene of a crime that caused horror throughout Germany. A 43-year-old shot nine men and women from Hanau for racist reasons and then killed his mother and himself.
“It’s a shock that’s going through the city again,” said Hanau Mayor Claus Kaminsky (SPD) in the “Bild” newspaper, trying to put the horror into words. And he says: The family has “been receiving socio-educational support for a few months”. There are reports of domestic violence – but even those are not yet confirmed. The rumor mill is running hot, as so often after such acts. The city administration will have to answer many questions about looking after the family: Could you have noticed something? Could the crime have been prevented? “We now have to wait for the further investigations by the police,” says the mayor.
Police are looking for the perpetrator
Hours after the crime, officials continue to try to find out what exactly happened in or in front of the high-rise – under the eyes of numerous onlookers who have gathered behind barrier tapes at the crime scene in the city center, as a reporter from the DPA news agency reports. The weekly market is very close by. “You’re shocked, especially when you’re a mother yourself,” says a 32-year-old who is traveling with her two small children.
The bodies of the two children are in forensic medicine. They are scheduled to be autopsied this Wednesday. “Further information can probably not be published until Thursday,” say the police and prosecutor’s press representatives, while their colleagues search for the man who tore the two children from their young lives.
In front of the high-rise building in downtown Hanau, passers-by are laying flowers and setting up candles. “Rest in peace” is written on one. On another: “Why?”
Sources: Public Prosecutor’s Office Hanau and Police Headquarters Southeast Hesse, “Mirror”, “Bild” newspapernews agencies DPA, AFP and Reuters